


Ashes To Ashes

by sceptick



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: F/M, Friends With Benefits, implied Roy Mustang/Riza Hawkeye, references to a canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-22
Updated: 2013-01-22
Packaged: 2017-11-26 10:18:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/649514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sceptick/pseuds/sceptick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
<i> "Do you ever think about dying?”</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Ashes To Ashes

 

When Riza knocks on his door, fresh off the train from Central, with her mouth in a thin, unhappy line, Jean knows it isn’t just a courtesy call.

“We’re on the move,” she says, pushing past him. She throws her coat onto a chair before dropping into it, head falling into her hands as her elbows brace themselves on her knees. He hesitates, wondering if he should go to her, but when she raises her face a few seconds later her eyes are dry. There’s a hard edge to her gaze, one he knows all too well.

First Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye doesn’t _make_ courtesy calls. At least, not to him. So it’s no surprise to Jean when she stands up, walks right into his space, presses him back into a wall and kisses him. Then he’s barely got his hands settled on her waist before she’s moving again, walking away towards his bedroom without a backwards glance. All he can do is follow.

He closes his door behind them, and when he turns, she’s at his window, closing his curtains with a care that verges on paranoid. This is par for the course and doesn’t bother him anymore, although the first few times she’d shown up on his doorstep and done it his ego’d twinged a bit. He’s a delicate soul, okay? But she made up for it then and now she does again, coming back to him and twisting her fingers in his hair, biting at his lower lip and pressing herself up against him in all the right ways.

She’s compact, Riza is, but she’s strong and she’s fierce and, God, she _burns_. She digs her nails into his scalp, pulling him by his neck as she walks backwards until her knees hit his bed frame and she goes down, bringing him with her. Her knees part to accommodate him, and she’s still wearing black, damn it, damn it _all_. He can’t get it off her fast enough, unbuttoning her dress jacket with hands that shake, kissing his way down her neck the way she likes so she doesn’t notice. The skirt is innocuous enough; without the obviously funereal military jacket, it could be office casual. She could be a lawyer, or a doctor, and him...

It’s stupid. It’s stupid and he knows it, so he pushes away the fantasy as he pushes up her skirt.

They don’t waste any time. She turns off his bedside lamp before yanking off her undershirt, and that’s normal for them too. And it’s good, it’s so good. Riza’s ruined Jean for sex, possibly forever. But he knows her eyes are closed -- even with the lights off and the curtains shut, his eyes adjust quickly, he’s a sniper too, damn it, and he can see the way her eyelids sweep shut as he pushes in.

After, they lie in the dark. It’s better this way. She’d just laugh at him over the mess, and he’d pretend he doesn’t care -- _this is a_ man’s _room, hawkeye; no, havoc, it’s a bachelor’s room and a sad one at that, although I guess that makes sense, all things considered_ \-- but he’d clean it once she was gone, like the world’s biggest idiot. The only light in the room comes from his cigarette, and for once she doesn’t complain about the smell or his health. Instead, she just stares straight into the smoldering ash forming at the tip, her head cushioned on his arm and an unreadable look on her face.

He takes a long drag, bracing himself, then says, “So. We’re on the move?”

He can feel the way she tenses, as close as they are. When she replies, it’s slow, like every word is being dragged out of her. Well, hell, he’s sorry he brought it up too, but it had to come out at some point. He would’ve liked to have stretched out the afterglow, but the job comes first. Always. “Yes,” she says, and her eyes are still glued to his cigarette. “The colonel has intel that Hughes’ death was orchestrated by someone high up in the military. He’s making his move.”

Jean nods. “I guess you guys are going to Central, then.” He lets it hang there, fishing for details. Riza only hums non-committally, but it’s as good as a yes.

Damn. Looks like they’ll be getting a new CO. Mustang may’ve been a delegating tyrant, but he was far from the worst officer out there. He might even be the best.

Hell, Jean might have to get an actual girlfriend now.

“Well,” he says. “As far as goodbye fucks go, I’d rank this top ten. Top _five_ , even. Congrats, lieutenant.” And she laughs, like he meant her to, but it’s distant, and she goes quiet too soon. He shifts, pulls away; she’s cutting off the blood circulation in his arm, and that’s his shooting arm. Can’t go damaging that. It’s maybe the best thing about him. He puts out his cigarette in the ashtray beside the bed (half full already and it’s only Wednesday, and he doesn’t even want to know how many of those are from last night -- he’d been in pretty rough shape. They all were.)

He settles down on his back so they’re laying side by side. Deliberately not taking his eyes away from the ceiling, he asks, “And -- the funeral?”

There’s a silence, then she turns, taking away her warmth as she collapses down onto her back, mirroring his position. “It was a nice ceremony. The Fuhrer was there.”

Havoc huffs a laugh. There’s something so _Riza_ about that reply. The brevity of it, the inanity. The distancing-myself-from-my-emotions of it. Whatever. He’s known her long enough to know she’ll deal with it in her own way, and that that’s best. He met her after fucking _Ishval_ , after all. You wouldn’t even have known there was anything wrong, the way she’d behaved. Riza Hawkeye, the ultimate professional.

He tries a different route, one more likely to give him a hint of how she’s really doing, since just _asking_ wouldn’t come to anything, obviously. “How do you think he’s holding up?”

There’s a pause. “The Fuhrer?”

He snorts. Funny lady. He doesn’t have to ask again, because she frowns, considering -- it’s obviously been weighing on her mind. This is what he’d been betting on, after all. And as long as it’s not _her_ mental health he’s asking after, she’s likely to actually give him an answer.

However: “The colonel was very close to Brigadier-General Hughes,” she says, and that’s it.

They lie in silence again. It feels like there’s a gulf between them, but that’s not really anything new. Jean knows this is casual to her, and that it has been ever since the first time she showed up on his doorstep, walked in, and asked him if he wanted to sleep with her. Fuck, it’s casual to him, too, but it still weirds him out how little he knows about her. Tight-lipped doesn’t even begin to cover it.

He lights another cigarette.

After a few seconds, she turns over again to face him. “Havoc?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you ever think about dying?”

It’s so casual. They’re soldiers, though, of course it’s casual. “Sure,” he says. “Who doesn’t?”

“What about -- I mean. Do you think about what comes after?”

He looks at her, frowning. “What, religion? I try _not_ to think about it, generally.”

She brushes her bangs out of her face. The hair is sticking in clumps as the sweat cools. “No. I’m asking if you ever think about your funeral.”

He takes another drag, wonders only half-jokingly if this is building to a lecture about smoking. “Can’t say I do.”

She searches his face for another moment -- he can feel it, feel her gaze raking across him, stripping him bare to see into the very truth of him -- then sighs, turning over onto her back again.

“What about you?” he asks, finally.

She stares at the ceiling, and gives it this funny half-smile. “I’m not going to have a funeral. I’m going to be cremated.”

He stares. He stares until he can’t help it and he laughs, and she laughs too. He laughs until he tears up, just a little, and she does him the courtesy of pretending she doesn’t see.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> A million thanks to [](http://thepyromanical1.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://thepyromanical1.livejournal.com/)**thepyromanical1** for reading this over with me  <333 Surprise surprise, I don't own FMA. Written for round 202 of the fma_fic_contest over on lj.


End file.
